Facial recognition for Aadhaar pushed back one month as Virtual ID deadline approaches

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has pushed back the implementation date for facial recognition as an Aadhaar authentication factor by one month to August 1, Times Now reports.

CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told PTI (Press Trust of India) that the capability is still in development, and declined to set a date for authentication agencies to deploy the new capability.

“From August 1, it will be available to user agencies. We will then watch how it performs in the field…If more tuning or adjustment is required, we will do that and in the next few months this whole process should get stabilised. We will then make it applicable across all our users,” Pandey said.

Facial recognition is being introduced to supplement fingerprint and iris biometrics, in order to make Aadhaar authentication easier for people with worn or otherwise difficult to capture fingerprints.

The UIDAI has ben working with biometric device providers to integrate the new modality into registered devices, and will provide an SDK for capturing facial images, checking them for liveness, digitally signing the data and encrypting it, according to Times Now.

Department of Telecommunications sets deadline for option of Virtual ID

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has instructed telecoms in the country to begin providing customers with a choice of using their Aadhaar or Virtual ID for SIM card registration or verification on July 1, The Economic Times reports.

“All licensees shall implement the changes proposed by UIDAI regarding use of virtual ID as an alternative of Aadhaar number, UID tokens and limited KYC concept in their systems, networks subject to adherence of existing Aadhaar based e-KYC processes for issuing new mobile connection to subscribers and re-verification of existing mobile subscribers,” the department said in a June 12 letter to telecom service providers.